Reasons For Love Series

A group of American tourists were taking a bus tour in Rome led by an English-speaking guide. Their first stop was a basilica in one of Rome’s big town squares, with several lanes of relentless Roman traffic. After they were all safely dropped off, the group climbed the steps for a quick tour of the church.

Then they spread out to board the bus, which was now parked across the street from the church. The frantic guide shouted for the group to stay together. He hollered out to them, “You cross one by one, they hit you one by one. But if you cross together, they think you will hurt the car! They won't hit you.” (Barbara Brokhoff, Grapes of Wrath or Grace, CSS Publishing, 1994, page 12; www.PreachingToday.com)

That’s a pretty good reason to stay together. However, there are many more good reasons to stay together and love one another, even when it’s hard to love. If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to 1 John 4, 1 John 4, where the Bible gives us five good reasons to love, especially in times when you just don’t feel like it.

1 John 4:7-8 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (ESV)

The very essence of God is love itself. That means God could never stop loving you just as the sun could never stop shining.

Les and Leslie Parrott, in their book on Relationships, put it this way: “The sun only shines, just as God only loves. It is the nature of the sun to shine, to offer warmth and light. And it is the nature of God to love. We are free to get away from the sun – we can lock ourselves in a dark room – but we do not keep the sun from shining just because we put ourselves in a place where it cannot reach us.

“So it is with God’s love. We can reject it, but God keeps on loving us. No matter what our choices, God still loves. And because God loves us, a relationship with God is possible” (Les and Leslie Parrott, Relationships, Zondervan, 1998, p.172; www.PreachingToday.com)

You can know God personally, because God already knows and loves you. Please, don’t spurn that love. Instead, trust yourself to God’s love and get to know Him. Feel the warmth and light of His unconditional love. Then let that become reason number one to love others, who may or may not deserve it.

LOVE BECAUSE YOU KNOW THE GOD WHO IS LOVE.

Care for people, because you have experienced the God who cares. Show compassion, because you have a personal relationship with a compassionate Lord.

A couple of years ago (2017), Andy Armstrong was startled to see a man standing in his bedroom doorway in the middle of the night. Scared, he yelled for the man to get out of his house. By daybreak, he realized the disoriented man was lucky to be alive.

Armstrong was “dead tired” when he went to bed about 10 p.m. on a Friday night in March. He was exhausted from a weeklong work trip and desperate to get a good night's sleep. He was so tired, he forgot to lock the door on his house.

About 3:30 a.m. the light in his bedroom flipped on and Armstrong jolted awake. He caught a glimpse of a stranger who turned and padded down the hall.

“What are you doing here?” Armstrong yelled. “You need to get out of my house immediately.”

The stranger turned and said, “Oh, man, I'm sorry. I think I'm in the wrong house… I crashed my car.” His face was banged up and there was blood on his sleeves. “I don't know where I'm at,” he said.

Armstrong’s fear subsided and he asked the stranger, “Do you need help?”

“No,” the man said and walked out wearing Armstrong's shoes, leaving his own behind.

Armstrong immediately locked the door and called the police. It was then he noticed nearly every light in the house was on, along with the TV, and he found blood on the kitchen counter and a little bit on the floor.

Police found the man about 20 minutes later, walking through the neighborhood.

By daylight, it was clear what happened: The man blew through the stop sign at a T in the road, barreled through a yard and launched his car off a 35 to 40-foot embankment, clearing a span of open water on Lake Le Homme Dieu, before landing on the season's remaining ice.

The man, James Sundby, 38, had no drugs or alcohol in his system and he didn’t remember what happened. Alexandria Police Chief Rick Wyffels said, “He was cold and disoriented, but he walked away alive." (Mary Lynn Smith, “Surviving a crash, disoriented driver wanders into Minnesota home,” Star Tribune, 3-16-17; www.PreachingToday.com)